Posts

Lee Bryant closed the Enterprise 2.0 Summit with a talk about Social Business.Where's Enterprise 2.0 headed next? It's in the direction of providing real business value.Enterprise 2.0 has been adopted at least a bit by most organizations. There's a nice spread of use cases, showed by research supported by Headshift.Lee sees Enterprise 2.0 as a Trojan mice for organizational change. Small but impressive changes to the organization.Enterprise 2.0 is still in the early phase, patchy and tool-centric (like the KM wave was in the beginning).We're looking for quantifiable business improvements, like:lower operational costsnetworked productivitybusiness agilityeffective management (move away from information hostages: businesses run by writing and moving report up and down the ladder)customer centricity (Listen! But many companies lack a structure to socialize what you're learned by listening)Where is business practice going wrong?people, outdated view of motivation, beh…

Some notes from the open space about Enterprise 2.0 and business processes:If you don't impact the business process with Enterprise 2.0 you won't unlock value.If you introduce a new tool, you can't make them use it. Tools should fit in their daily routine. If not, users will easily reject it.There were differences about using force to get people to adopt Enterprise 2.0 tooling. Most said, Don't use force, make it voluntary. But it does depend on the type of e2.0 project. For instance, an example was given about social project management. In this case you agree to do project management in this way. But with communities using (a bit of) force is restrictive.Helping people use e2.0 tools and integrating them in their work processes requires patience and lots of training. Sometimes you even have to start by explaining what a webbrowser is. Focus on the e2.0 concepts not on the tools. Most people understand the concepts better than the tools... Enterprise 2.0 projects almo…

JP Rangaswami couldn't make it... Too bad. So his talk has been turned into a discussion between Frank La Pinta, prof. Joachim Niemeier, Jamil Ouaj and Christian Wuerdemann.Don't have much to blog about this discussion. Not that it wasn't interesting for sure. One important thing to pass on is that the European companies in the panel have not changed their organizational structure based on their e2.0 implementations. The middle management does not have a new role, according to the panel.There was lots of discussion in the audience about this topic via Twitter.

Oscar Berg on the stage! He'll talk about Transparency as the double-edged sword. Or: Governing Enterprise 2.0 Risk.Knowledge work, ideas and the like are like black boxes. We can't look into them. We are finding ways to open up these black boxes.Increasing transparency in organizations and between organizations decreases risks and enables value-creation.Oscar points to two cases in which they tried to increase workplace awareness using blogs and microblogs.Oscar remarks that many of the legal issues we are now concerned with are the same as when email was introduced.Usability issues leads to workarounds. Employees start to email everything, label everything as Confidential, copy (locally) to ensure access, share with USB sticks.Lesson 1: There's a real challenge in finding the right balance between security and privacy.Lesson 2: We need a balance between control and empowerment. Governance is good, but it should not tip over in such a way that employees don't feel em…

CheeChin Liew (BASF) is up on the stage.Interesting how CheeChin compares the development cycles in the organization with the development of communication tools. The increasing speed in product development cycles at BASF requires different communication skills and tools.Connect.BASF consists of three pillars:networking. Employees can be visible, profiles, in communities.knowledge sharing. Communities (there is overlap with point 1), tags and search etc.collaboration. Blogs, wiki's etc.It is a global platform.Ho did they start? It started in Communications (by Cordelia Krooß). They convinced to start a steering committee around this topic (@shake ) with a board member as sponsor. CheeChin was in R&D. He had launched wiki's there. E2.0 was not started by IT. IT came in later. This project is now permanent.In the launch phase they focused on IT implementation a lot. They have connect.BASF days with external, inspiring speakers. They do a lot of demo-ing and presenting. Consu…

Luis Suarez, Lee Bryant, Alexander Richter and Alexander Stocker will discuss adoption archetypes.The Alexander's kick off with an overview of their research. They point back to the research that was done on Groupware in the past. This is a basis for the research on Enterprise 2.0.Archetype nr. 1: Exploration. Continuously identifying feasible usage scenarios for IT-services which are suitable for any use.Archetype nr 2: Promotion. Coordinated communication and targeted training of IT-services with focus on certain modes of use.Their research shows: Wikis and weblogs have gained maturity, making promotion the dominant strategy in corporate settings.Microblogging has the explanation strategy. Research will continue to see if that changes.Luis takes the stage. Talks about BlueIQ - driving social software adoption at IBM. IBM started with social stuff 40 years ago with their forums. But in the modern sense of social software they started in 2001. Points to the whitepaper about BlueIQ…

Next talk/discussion with Rob Howard, Luis Suarez and Frank Schoenefeld.Frank gives a list of 7 pitfalls of Enterprise 2.0.Don't care at all. Frank says: You are obliged to care. Since Enterprise 2.0 is freeform, emergent and easy to use - just let it happen. Frank says: in a closed system entropy/disorder always increases (2nd law of thermodynamics) It's not about technology... Frank says: It is. It's about culture... Frank says: It is not. You can not measure the ROI of it. Frank says: You can if you want to and have to. Information overload kills. Frank says: It does indeed. Shield yourself. With Enterprise 2.0 we've found the holy grail for everything (in the organization). Discussion:Rob disagrees fundamentally with the thesis that it is about technology. The big successful companies have a business objective and then select tools to be successful. Analytics is important (they should map to a strategy). Rob missed 'resources' in the pitfall list. You need …

Next talk by Bertrand Duperrin, Ellen Trude, Emanuele Quintarelli and Mike Thompson (Headshift).Bertrand kicks off by focusing on Cultural issues in general, between Europe and the US and it's implications for Enterprise 2.0:self protection: culture as an excuselocal identity protection vs globalization and mergersdifferent attitudes towards autonomy, rules, hierarchy...philosophy of worktrust/mistrust vs companies, colleagues...will engage with colleaguesorganization boundaries that reinforce cultural oneswho said legal?Bertrand says this is a major issue and it's a good thing we are discussing it here. Every country with its own culture has to find it's own approach wrt e2.0.Now Mike Thompson (Headshift) who collaborated in a large research project on Enterprise 2.0. This research is still going on. First results can be found here. He says the research shows that it's more related to company culture than country culture if and how enterprise 2.0 concepts and tools f…

I'm at the Enterprise 2.0 Summit in Frankfurt! I'll be live tweeting through this summit. I'll also try to summarize the talks as they pass by.The first talk is about "Manager 2.0" by prof. Richard Collin (Grenoble Ecole de Management) and Rolf Schmidt-Holtz (CEO Sony).Collin wonders if 2.0 is a good extension in Enterprise 2.0. 'It's just a version number'. It doesn't stress enough the future enterprise will be totally different.A new space is emerging. Not in the economy of good anymore, but in the economy of information. (Before the economy of good there was the economy of territory.) The north point is not north, Dow Jones, but 'you'.Information is the new steam. The industrial age is passe. And it's moving fast. He tells about how long it took the book and the pc to move into our world. And relates that to the speed in which the Internet moved into our world. This has implications for leadership!How should be define leadership in…

Some time ago I said: Vacation First. I wanted to share my review of professor Andrew McAfee's book Enterprise 2.0before I went on vacation. That didn't work out. I wish I could have written this review sooner, because the sooner you read this book the better. I'll tell you why.Andrew McAfee coined the term 'enterprise 2.0' (in 2006) and has been one of the leading thinkers in the space of applying web 2.0 concepts and tools (or 'collaborative media' as McAfee likes to call them) to the workplace. This book summarizes his thinking over the years. Of course he's been blogging and speaking about this topic. So I was wondering if this book would bring me new insights. Well it did. And to me this is why I love books. You know thinking about the topic you're reading about in a book won't stop as soon as the book has been published. But a book does give you a summary of past thinking and concepts for future thinking. And all that in a limited amount …

Absolutely great post by Chris Dixon about experiencing social media. Just go ahead and read it. It's short, but good.This is exactly the reason I like to tell people about what I get from social media, but stopped to push them into this space. They have to do that on their own. Experience them. Give them some time. And dismiss them then if you like.

Today is Blog Action Day! If you don't know, the idea is very simple. A theme is selected and bloggers join in to right about this topic. By talking, writing and thinking about one topic for one day, hopefully more awareness will be created around this theme, hopefully leading to change. Even the White House is joining in this year. Let's prove Malcolm Gladwell is wrong! ;-) This year's theme is 'WATER'.Coming from a country that, if it weren't for dikes, would mostly be under water, I understand the importance and the danger of water. In the previous years we've seen all kinds of disasters relating to water. Just think back to hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. Or the floods in Pakistan. And now the dike that broke in Hungary.But we can also relate to the way water is being and has been polluted. Just relate to the BT oil platform that pumped huge amount of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. We can't even imagine the damage that as done to the sea (ecology) …

Really looking forward to the Enterprise 2.0 Summit in Frankfurt! It's going to be great to listen to all kinds of talks, from experts and practitioners in the Enterprise 2.0 field. I'll also be giving a talk, as I mentioned some time ago. And it's great to know (old) friends will be there as well.Just received an email the other day from the organizers. I may give you a present! You can get a 10% reduction on the conference price by going to their website and entering the promotion code 'e20ref'.I hope this helps convince you to come!

It wasn't too long ago I wondered if there would be another DARPA Grand Challenge. I wondered because the Challenges I'd followed and watched were so inspirational. Remember the 2006 Grand Challenge when the Stanford team passed the finish line first? Man, I almost jumped up and down with the team... And if the DARPA Challenges weren't continued, would the research team go forth with their work or would it be commercialized?Then, just recently, we heard Google is working on a secret project, the Google Car. An autonomous vehicle driving around in the SF area. Wow! Techcrunch, Robert Scoble, the NY Times and ReadWriteWeb have the story. Oh, and Google of course.So, the work done for the DARPA Grand Challenges is continued by Google. And who's responsible for this project? Right, the team leader of the winning team in 2006, Dr. Sebastian Thrun. In 2006 he was lead researcher at the Stanford AI lab. So, now we have the Google algorithm and the Google Car coming from Stan…

The Internet is such a great place to share and learn. I find it a fantastic place to connect with all kinds of people you hardly know, but are willing to share and help you learn anyway.I recently had such an experience I'd like to share with you. Remember my post on knowledge sharing and incentives? I could have kept this thought to myself, researched it and come up with the answer myself. But I didn't. I blogged about it, commented on a related post (which popped right when I was thinking about the topic...) and shared it in the LinkedIn Group 'Gurteen Knowledge Community'.What did I get back? Did my readers or experts in the field criticize or laugh at me for wondering about this topic or asking 'dumb' questions? Did they leave me in the cold, completely not responding to me at all? Of course, this can all happen, but none of this (has ever) happened to me. I'll tell you what I got back in this case.For one, Nick Milton wrote a separate post about my q…